Comments on: Episode 52: Death visits after midnight

By: hizzhoner

hizzhoner — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:29:22 +0000

Hey Steve,

I posted a link to the “cafe” on our site and was asked who “these people” (the regulars were…I posted another link and this in response..

http://www.woodcodems.blogspot.com/

Hizzhoner….

From Steve: Hizzhoner — thanks for the support. It’s much appreciated. Horace in particular wanted to thank you, but then he always has been the politest one at the large round table. — Steve

By: alwayshope

alwayshope — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:00:43 +0000

Thanks, Steve.
The last few lines were a little blurry though, I had to go back and read them again, must have had something in my eye.

By: RJHall

RJHall — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:05:18 +0000

Wonderful episode as usual! I think that the death penalty is one of the issues where it’s really most important to change the “frame” that people think of when they think of the issue. Death penalty supporters always think of the frame of whether a defendant deserves to die, so can always dismiss as unimportant or irrelevant the concerns of death penalty opponents. This episode skilfully shifts to the frame of whether a defendant’s family deserves what they go through. My favorite frame for a death penalty opponent, incidentally, is to shift to a different frame, of whether the government deserves to execute people. It’s in that frame that arguments about discrimination in the death penalty, executing poor people, uncertainty of shoddy trials, etc., becomes more relevant. And the ultimate question of this frame, “Do you really think that George W. Bush deserves to execute people?”, is just as unanswerable by any answer other than the obvious one as the ultimate question of the usual frame, “Do you really think that somebody who rapes and kills your daughter deserves to be executed?”

By: Ellen

Ellen — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:51:03 +0000

Another one to make me cry. You presented this issue beautifully from both sides. It’s a very complicated issue, but it shouldn’t even be one in a so-called civilized country as we like to present ourselves as being. I’d rather see offenders get life in prison without parole. That would be harder on them (if they are truly guilty) and at the same time there wouldn’t be any chance of putting an innocent person to death. Just in the last couple of weeks, here in Dallas, another “guilty” person was released on the basis of DNA. Juries are fallible. Lawyers don’t always do the job they should. We all know the arguments. Steve, thanks once again for writing. I was begining to wonder if the Boys were going to return.

By: hizzhoner

hizzhoner — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:27:29 +0000

Thanks Steve.

I’ve never heard the arguments presented in a more dramatic, sucinct fashion.

Aside from the somber tone, it was great to visit my “old friends” at the cafe again.

hizzhoner

By: iowametal76

iowametal76 — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:49:16 +0000

“I know they killed a murderer tonight . . . someone who committed an awful, unthinkable crime,” he spoke in a halting voice, but was easily understood. “I know that. But they also killed a father, a grandfather, a son and a brother . . . and none of us . . . not one of us, did anything wrong.”

“I still don’t feel sorry for Gill . . . he got what he deserved. But Donald didn’t. And it just isn’t worth that. It isn’t worth making another innocent person suffer like that.”

——————–

I don’t think the anti-death penalty argument can be presented any better than that.

Thank you Steve. It’s nice to visit our old friends in the Cafe again.